This Week I Learned - Week 4 2026
This Week I Learned -
* "Studies show AI-generated text responses are now rated as more compassionate than those written by humans – even when those humans are trained responders from crisis hotlines. This isn't because AI is genuinely more compassionate, but rather a sobering indictment of how rarely we listen in a non-judgmental way.
The irony that an algorithm powered by a large language model – the type of machine learning that underpins many AI chatbots – might be perceived as a better listener than an authentic human reveals important insights about our human listening shortcomings. It's when our agendas, backstories and emotional triggers run the show, that true deep listening becomes thwarted.
Large language models don't have motivations or desires. They are programmed to be compliant so that people will continue to use them. They therefore exhibit perpetual patience – never suffering from empathy fatigue. While such a feat is not something we humans can or should aspire to, holding back from interruptions can be powerful.
AI seems to offer users anonymity and freedom from social judgement, creating psychological safety that enables open sharing." - BBC
* "Kubernetes killed more startups than server crashes ever did.
You don't have Spotify's scale. You have 8 engineers and a single server that's running fine
But you watched a KubeCon talk, and now you've got 23 YAML files, a Helm chart nobody fully understands, and engineers debugging pod evictions instead of building a product
Your "cloud-native infrastructure" is just a cloud bill with extra complexity
A $50/month VM can handle millions of requests. Your startup will run out of money debugging networking issues long before you need horizontal pod autoscaling
The best infrastructure decision is often the simplest one" - Dr Milan Milanovic
* "Scaling is not really a problem for SQL databases. Shopify is running its distributed monolith on MySQL 8 and can scale to over 50 million queries per second. With every Black Friday campaign, they raise the bar even higher.
Facebook uses MySQL with MyRocks. You can find their MySQL fork on GitHub. So, if SQL works fine for the largest software platforms in the world, it's surely going to work just fine for the vast majority of your projects." - Vlad Mihalcea
* Steve Wozniak pioneered affordable color graphics for personal computers with the Apple II in 1977, using a clever $1 chip hack.
* The $283-billion IT services industry may be nearing a turning point after a depressed couple of quarters, as companies signal green shoots in discretionary client spending for 2026.
* The headcount of Infosys after the December 2025 quarter stands at 3.37 lakh.
* The top five IT services companies have already, between them, declared about ₹5,000 crore increase in salary costs.
* Infosys has revised pay for its 2026 graduate intake, with compensation rising to as much as Rs 21 lakh annually for 'L3' specialist programmers.
* Cybersecurity major Palo Alto Networks is offering Rs 35 lakh per annum to technical solution interns from top institutes.
* The 14 Trees Foundation, a non-profit organization, hosts WorkCations —weeklong artist retreats at unique locations designed to channel creative energy into climate action. These gatherings focus on design projects that support the foundation’s mission.
* "Math is Nature's language. It's a method of communicating directly with us" - Numb3rs
* Copper is indispensable for electrification and forms the backbone of EV batteries, motors, wiring, charging infrastructure, and power grids. As EV adoption accelerates, copper demand has entered a phase of exponential growth that many policymakers and markets have underestimated. With EVs requiring four to five times more copper than internal combustion vehicles and no viable large-scale substitutes available, this synchrony underscores the persistent structural demand pressure. As electrification accelerates, copper scarcity may become the main bottleneck unless mining, recycling and material innovation are rapidly scaled up.
* China controls over 70% of global battery cell production.
* Due to its dominance in the manufacturing of components, China made up more than 60% of the U.S.’s imports of smartphones in 2016. However, 10 years later, China’s share has dwindled to about 22% of the U.S.’s smartphone imports, majorly due to higher tariffs. Meanwhile, countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, and India have shown upticks in their shares of U.S.’s smartphone imports - The Hindu
* The female Darwin's bark spider (Caerostris darwini), native to Madagascar’s forests, spins silk that’s stronger and tougher than steel and most synthetic fibers. With a tensile strength of about 1.6 gigapascals, roughly three times that of iron, it’s considered the toughest biological material ever discovered. In C. darwini, adult females are about three times larger than males. The silk contains unusually high levels of this protein, explaining its exceptional mechanical properties but in turn increasing its metabolic cost.
* Sleep tourism is about planning a trip that revolves around relaxation. Hotels and wellness resorts have begun designing special packages focused on sleep quality - featuring blackout curtains, pillow menus, soothing soundscapes, and even one-on-one sessions with sleep coaches.
* India’s consumer watchdog has penalised major ecommerce platforms for enabling the sale of illegal walkie-talkies. New 2025 guidelines from Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) now require e-commerce platforms to verify products before listing, deploy automated compliance checks, and conduct regular self-audits.
* In late 2025, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) expanded its area from 650 to 2,053 square kilometers by merging 27 peripheral urban local bodies (ULB). This expansion turned GHMC into one of India’s largest municipal corporations, encircled by the 158 km-long Nehru Outer Ring Road.
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